Dezeen » Googlehttp://www.dezeen.com
architecture and design magazineSun, 02 Aug 2015 21:49:42 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2Google drafts in Thomas Heatherwick for delayed London HQ projecthttp://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/15/thomas-heatherwick-rework-allford-hall-monaghan-morris-boring-google-london-headquarter-hq-plans/
http://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/15/thomas-heatherwick-rework-allford-hall-monaghan-morris-boring-google-london-headquarter-hq-plans/#commentsMon, 15 Jun 2015 12:27:45 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=721399Thomas Heatherwick has reportedly been brought in to work on Google's new London headquarters after plans by architecture firm Allford Hall Monaghan Morris were deemed too boring. The British designer – who is already working on Google's California campus in partnership with Danish architect Bjarke Ingels – has been asked to draw up new plans for the internet giant's London base, […]

]]>Thomas Heatherwick has reportedly been brought in to work on Google's new London headquarters after plans by architecture firm Allford Hall Monaghan Morris were deemed too boring.

The British designer – who is already working on Google's California campus in partnership with Danish architect Bjarke Ingels – has been asked to draw up new plans for the internet giant's London base, according to Business Insider.

Heatherwick Studio refused to comment, but did not deny the rumours. "We're not making any statement at the minute," a spokesperson told Dezeen.

The headquarters will allow Google to consolidate its London operations under one roof, replacing existing offices in Covent Garden and Victoria on a site that stretches 330 metres from Regent's Canal towards King's Cross station.

The latest design is understood to feature a swimming pool and running track on the roof, while earlier versions of the scheme are thought to have included a docking station for airships.

In February, the Architect's Journal reported that several AHMM staff had quit the firm following frustrations with the project.

Speaking to the magazine at that time, Allford described the project as "frustrating, and at times exasperating, for all involved".

"However, we continue to enjoy an excellent and creative relationship with Google London," Allford added.

The building was initially scheduled to open in 2017.

Heatherwick Studio and Ingels' firm BIG unveiled their proposals for Google North Bayshore earlier this year – a campus of flexible buildings and gardens sheltered beneath a network of translucent canopies in Mountain View, California.

In an exclusive interview with Dezeen, Bjarke Ingels said the campus will be "more like a workshop than a corporate office", and will set a new industry standard for workplace design.

When touched, the conductive threads send signals to a computer that translates the movements of the user into controls. This allows areas of garments to be used as an interface for devices like smartphones and tablets.

"The structure of textiles is the same as the structure of touchscreens that we use every day on mobile devices and tablets," said project founder Ivan Poupyrev. "That means that if you replace some of the threads in textiles with conductive threads, you should be able to weave a textile which can recognise a variety of simple touch gestures."

By swiping the portion of a textiles embedded with the conductive fibres, users could unlock their phone, answer calls or scroll through articles.

"If you can hide or weave interactivity and input devices into the materials, that will be the first step towards integrating computers into clothing," Poupyrev said.

The yarn is created by replacing strands of thread with thin metal wires or conductive polymers. According to the team, their yarn is highly conductive as well as scalable, so it can be used in industrial weaving machines around the world.

The material looks like normal yarn, and can be woven to create a textured surface or integrated so it is completely invisible. Different variations and colours allow designers to experiment with textures and patterns.

"The idea that Jacquard is an interface that is blended into the clothing that we wear, that has an implication for the way that we use services, products, applications, and anything that we do through our devices," said creative technologist João Wilbert. "It's somehow getting the technology out of the way and making interactions more natural and more seamless."

The team is continuing to develop the project so that all of the electronic components needed for the interface to work could be integrated into clothing.

"We're trying to shrink down all the components to the size of a button and ultimately this will be something that's so small we can embed them into the manufacturing process," said lead researcher Nan-Wei Gong.

"Software design and fashion design often don't exist together in the same place," added design lead Carsten Schwesig. "We're hoping to make it very simple for each of these parties to collaborate."

Developments in smart textiles have the potential to revolutionise the fashion industry, and could soon enable the possibility to download new colours and patterns to garments instead of buying new ones.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/03/google-smartphone-interfaces-conductive-threads-clothes-textiles-project-jacquard/feed/0Google's Project Soli turns hand gestures into digital controls using radarhttp://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/02/google-project-soli-interaction-sensor-radar-hand-gestures-digital-control-electronic-devices/
http://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/02/google-project-soli-interaction-sensor-radar-hand-gestures-digital-control-electronic-devices/#commentsTue, 02 Jun 2015 17:00:38 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=712378Google has unveiled an interaction sensor that uses radar to translate subtle hand movements into gesture controls for electronic devices, with the potential to transform the way they're designed (+ movie). Project Soli was one of the developments revealed by Google's Advanced Technology and Progress (ATAP) group during the company's I/O developer conference in San Francisco last week. […]

]]>Google has unveiled an interaction sensor that uses radar to translate subtle hand movements into gesture controls for electronic devices, with the potential to transform the way they're designed (+ movie).

The team has created a tiny sensor that fits onto a chip. The sensor is able to track sub-millimetre hand gestures at high speed and accuracy with radar, and use them to control electronic devices without physical contact. This could remove the need for designing knobs and buttons into the surface of products like watches, phones and radios, and even medical equipment.

"Capturing the possibilities of the human hands was one of my passions," said Project Soli founder Ivan Poupyrev. "How could we take this incredible capability – the finesse of the human actions and using our hands – but apply it to the virtual world?"

Waves in the radio frequency spectrum are emitted at a target by the chip. The panel then receives the reflected waves, which are transferred to a computer circuit that interprets the differences between them.

Even subtle changes detected in the returning waves can be translated into commands for an electronic device.

"Radar has been used for many different things: tracking cars, big objects, satellites and planes," said Poupyrev. "We're using them to track micro motions; twitches of humans hands then use it to interact with wearables and integrated things in other computer devices."

The team is able to extract information from the data received and identify the intent of the user by comparing the signals to a database of stored gestures. These include movements that mimic the use of volume knobs, sliders and buttons, creating a set of "virtual tools".

"Our team is focused on taking radar hardware and turning it into a gesture sensor," said Jaime Lien, lead research engineer on the project. "The reason why we're able to interpret so much from this one radar signal is because of the full gesture-recognition pipeline that we've built."

Compared to cameras, radar has very high positional accuracy and so can sense tiny motions. Radar can also work through other materials, meaning the chips can be embedded within objects and still pick up the gestures.

The gestures chosen by the team were selected for their similarity to standard actions we perform every day. For example, swiping across the side of a closed index finger with a thumb could be used to scroll across a flat plane, while tapping a finger and thumb together would press a button.

Google's ATAP department is already testing hardware applications for the technology, including controls for digital radios and smartwatches. The chips can be produced in large batches and built into devices and objects.

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/02/google-project-soli-interaction-sensor-radar-hand-gestures-digital-control-electronic-devices/feed/5Google reveals new site for Mountain View headquarters by BIG and Heatherwickhttp://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/01/google-reveals-new-site-mountain-view-headquarters-big-heatherwick-california/
http://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/01/google-reveals-new-site-mountain-view-headquarters-big-heatherwick-california/#commentsMon, 01 Jun 2015 13:54:23 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=711666Google has found another way to begin construction on its vast Silicon Valley campus designed by BIG and Heatherwick Studio – despite losing its original land bid to social network LinkedIn. The future of Google's proposed California headquarters was thrown into jeopardy last month when the business was allotted just a quarter of the land required to build it. But the […]

The future of Google's proposed California headquarters was thrown into jeopardy last month when the business was allotted just a quarter of the land required to build it. But the web giant has now presented plans for a similar building on an entirely different site.

The 18.6-acre (7.5 hectare) site is located just east of the company's current headquarters, known as the Googleplex, on the opposite side of Charleston Park in Mountain View.

Google has leased the Charleston East site since 2007 but hasn't moved forward with any plans there until now – despite having permission to build 595,000 square feet (55,000 square metres) of office and commercial space.

"We can't say very much about the project, other than confirming that yes we are the designers of that submission and are involved with BIG," he told Dezeen.

The two studios – led by architect Bjarke Ingels and designer Thomas Heatherwick – had originally presented designs for a series of sheltered buildings and gardens across four parcels of land. But in a meeting with local councillors in May, Google was allotted just one, covering 48,000 square metres.

Google's head of real estate David Radcliffe had reportedly told councillors the move was "a significant blow".

The lease agreement on the Charleston East site predates the city's strict limits on office expansion. These were brought in after the North Bayshore area started to become a hub for technology companies, including Google, Microsoft and LinkedIn.

Councillor Mike Kasperzak told local paper San Jose Mercury News that the move was "not a surprise" and that the vacant property had been a factor in the council's decision not to give Google too much more land.

"It was always interesting to me that their plans never showed anything there, it just showed a big field," he told the paper.

Google still requires more than one million square feet (93,000 square metres) of space to build a campus of the size originally planned. It recently filed an appeal for councillors to reconsider the smallest of its rejected sites, on the grounds that it will not increase traffic volume.

Google has been based in Mountain View, just outside San Francisco, for the last 15 years. In an interview with Dezeen, Bjarke Ingels said its new campus will set an industry standard for workplace design and help define "Google 2.0".

]]>http://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/01/google-reveals-new-site-mountain-view-headquarters-big-heatherwick-california/feed/0LinkedIn blocks BIG and Heatherwick's proposed Google HQhttp://www.dezeen.com/2015/05/07/linkedin-blocks-big-thomas-heatherwick-proposed-google-hq-headquarters-mountain-view-california/
http://www.dezeen.com/2015/05/07/linkedin-blocks-big-thomas-heatherwick-proposed-google-hq-headquarters-mountain-view-california/#commentsThu, 07 May 2015 17:26:06 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=695077The future of Google's new BIG- and Heatherwick-designed California headquarters is in jeopardy – because social network LinkedIn has been given most of the land required to build it. Both companies are seeking to expand their real-estate capacity in the North Bayshore neighbourhood of Mountain View but, according to local reports, city councillors have elected […]

Both companies are seeking to expand their real-estate capacity in the North Bayshore neighbourhood of Mountain View but, according to local reports, city councillors have elected to grant around two thirds of the available commercial land to LinkedIn.

Google is alleged to have been allotted roughly 48,000 square metres – enough for just one of the four structures conceived by British designer Thomas Heatherwick and Danish architect Bjarke Ingels – while LinkedIn will take 130,000 square metres.

It is now unclear whether Google's proposal is still viable, or whether it will need to be redesigned for a new location.

The decision was reportedly made in a meeting held on Tuesday night. According to Silicon Valley Business Journal reporter Nathan Donato-Weinstein, Google's real-estate head David Radcliffe told council members the move was "a significant blow".

In a statement released on Wednesday, Radcliffe added: "We're pleased the council has decided to advance our landings site and will continue to work with the city on Google's future in Mountain View."

Google has been based in Mountain View, just outside San Francisco, for the last 15 years. The web giant first unveiled the vision for its new campus back in February, which involves a series of buildings and outdoor areas sheltered beneath translucent domes.

LinkedIn, which has had to regularly compete with the much-larger rival, is also keen to expand. Its proposal includes new office buildings, a theatre and a health club.

According to Donato-Weinstein, councillors were impressed with Google's vision but were worried about stifling the growth of LinkedIn, which they claim is an integral part of the city's business diversity.

The decision does not give LinkedIn any planning permissions, but allows the company to progress with developing formal plans.